In recent years, it has been a matter of significant concern to maintain a healthy and beautiful skin irrespective of age or sex. However, the skin is delicately affected by aging, and besides temperature, humidity, ultraviolet rays, cosmetic products, diseases, stress, eating habits, etc. Therefore, various troubles such as the decrement of various functions (functions of preventing the loss of water and the like from the vital body to control the homeostatic maintenance of the body heat, protecting the body from physical and chemical stimulation and various bacteria and keeping the resilience of the skin to determine its surface form, and the like) of the skin and aging of the skin occur.
Further, the cutaneous troubles occur due to, in addition to the functional aberration of skin tissue caused by intracorporeal and extracorporeal factors, which act on the vital body, such as changes of the external environments (seasonal changes, ultraviolet rays, etc.) and variations in physiological functions attendant on aging or diseases as described above, pachymenia, parakeratosis and the like induced thereby.
On the other hand, wrinkles, which are one of dermal troubles, occur due to dermal aging caused by aging, drying, ultraviolet rays and/or the like. More specifically, the skin is aged by morphological changes of the epidermal surface caused by physical and chemical stimulation from the external world, such as drying and ultraviolet rays, and tissue degeneration in the dermis by aging, diseases, stress and the like, particularly, deterioration of the dermis, in which collagen fibers are lost to a great extent, reduction of subcutaneous adipose tissue and the like, which the aging mainly forms the cause of wrinkles, slackness and loss of resilience.
Spots and freckles on the skin are generally considered to be caused by the abnormal pigmentation of melanin pigment within the skin; the melanin pigment is synthesized in melanocytes activated by the cause such as stimulation by exposure to ultraviolet rays from sunlight, hormone aberration or genetic factors.
As principal attempts for preventing and remedying such cutaneous troubles, there has been carried out a method in which a synthetic or natural moisturizer is applied to the skin, thereby preventing the drying of the skin to enhance the moistening ability of the skin; a method in which a blood circulation-facilitating agent is applied to the skin, thereby facilitating the circulation of blood; the development of agents for preventing wrinkles (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 185005/1987, 502546/1987, 72157/1990 and 288822/1990, etc.); the application of a whitening agent such as a melanin inhibitor; or the like.
However, all these means have not attained a sufficient effect on the cutaneous troubles.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a cosmetic which is excellent in preventing and remedying effects on the above-described cutaneous troubles and gives users a pleasant feeling upon use.